


All Things Bright and Beautiful

by shireduchess



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Post Season 6, side Allurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 22:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shireduchess/pseuds/shireduchess
Summary: A few vargas rest after bringing Shiro's spirit out of the Black Lion...I'm having emotions guys





	All Things Bright and Beautiful

They’re headed to Olkarion first. Pidge has been working through frail, staticky communications with Matt, and he’ll rendezvous with them once they get there, where they’ll load the lions and finally begin their long way home. No one seems to want to put any effort towards thinking about the state of the Coalition. Their alliance with the Galra had been tentative at best, and now with Lotor gone… to say it’s been a hard day would be the understatement of the millennia.  
 

They won’t stay on the asteroid for long, just a handful of vargas to recharge and get some very well-needed rest.  
  


Speaking of rest…

 

Keith looks down at Shiro, nestled between his legs where he sits at the base of the Black Lion. His body is turned in towards Keith, the broad stump of his severed arm digging into Keith’s breast where Keith has removed his chest plate. The metal has surged up Shiro’s arm, almost completely covering his shoulder. Keith remembers seeing it spike and uncurl like the angry, unraveled scales of a predator about to strike, lit from within by a harsh purple so unlike the aggressive lavender that took over Shiro’s arm when he used it in melee.  
 

He can’t see all of Shiro’s face from this angle, his shock of hoary hair hanging limp over his forehead. Right now it’s enough to see him at all, the feel the warm, heavy press of his body slumped against his own. He’s still horribly, horribly weak, even though he’s stable enough to not need a cryopod- not that they have one to put him in- but he’s _here_ , real flesh and blood and spirit all bound in a fragile, newly-wrapped package.

 

_He’s here._

 

One of Keith’s arms is wrapped around Shiro’s intact shoulder, holding him close, and Keith runs his free hand through Shiro’s hair, gently pushing it back from his face as though carding his fingers through stardust. The cosmic wolf is curled up at his side, thick indigo fur brushing against one of Shiro’s legs. Keith has seen the others give the animal a few curious glances, but there hasn’t been time for show-and-tell in the chaos that ensued ever since Keith flew back to the castleship, and now everyone is too exhausted to be fazed.

 

His mother is keeping a close, respectful distance, leaning against the Black Lion’s opposite leg. Romelle is slumped beside her, her soft blonde head knocking softly against Krolia’s knee as she dozes.

 

Pidge and Hunk are a small pile before the massive paws of the Yellow Lion. After sending a final message to Matt, Pidge fell asleep with the immediate speed of a system shutdown, snug against Hunk’s side. Her outstretched legs are draped over Coran’s. The man is reclined opposite her and Hunk, head drooping so low that his mustache brushes his chest. It took longer for his eyes to shut than the others; he spent a long time staring into space, mourning the loss of the castleship, Keith thought.

 

Shiro shifts incrementally against Keith, the slightest, softest movement, and Keith drops his gaze back to him. His new white hair should age him even more than his twenty-five years, but in Keith’s eyes, cheek and temple pressed to his chest, Shiro looks younger than ever. The scar over his nose looks even darker now, but the furrow in his brow is gone, laid plain by rest.  
 

_I love you._

 

The images pass across Keith’s mind like watercolors: the stark light of the base illuminating Shiro’s face, twisted almost beyond recognition; the vivid glow and hum of his blade as it slashed through the air. The desperation had flowed through Keith like fluid, his own blood pumping with the force of a neutron star.  
 

The burn on his face doesn’t sting anymore, but the phantom pain and dull heat radiate across his cheek and down his throat.  
 

He remembers slicing through Shiro’s arm with his own bayard, and the look in his eyes when he lifted his head and Keith realized whatever force had been holding him was gone, severed with his missing limb. He will have the memory of that face forever.  
 

His leader. His brother. His best friend.  
 

Shiro has always been more.  
 

 _I love you.  
_  

As slowly and softly as he can, Keith stretches out his legs, readjusting his grip around Shiro’s shoulders. The alien wolf lifts her head and makes a _snuff_ sound through her nose before getting to her feet and padding back a step, pale fluffy tail making a single swish through the air before she pads over to Krolia and Romelle, pausing to sniff the sleeping girl’s face.  
 

Keith tucks Shiro closer, trying not to jostle him too much as he slips his other arm under Shiro’s legs, preparing to heft him up.  
 

“Do you-”  
 

The voice breaks off in a swollen way, and Keith looks up to meet Lance’s gaze. He is sitting with Allura, their sides pressed together from shoulder to hip, and the princess’s arm is over his shoulder. Lance swallows tightly, his eyes still red-rimmed, and Allura squeezes his shoulder.  
 

“Do you want some help?” Lance asks. His voice is weak and sorrow-strained, and Keith remembers how he fell to his knees at Shiro’s side, distress pouring out of his every pore.  
 

There is nothing but concern in his features now, concern and a need to reach out and help. All of the rivalry and dissonance that had been present between them, both contrived and imagined, is gone, dissolved like tissue paper in water, and Keith doesn’t quite smile, but warm thanks is evident in his eyes.  
 

“It’s all right,” he says, “I’ve got him.”  
 

Lance doesn’t protest, does not even open his mouth in the beginning of a rebuttal. Instead he nods and drops his temple against Allura’s. She takes one of his hands in her own and holds it atop their joined knees, and when her eyes float across the space and meet Keith’s, there is a warm, tired light in them.  
 

Keith may have been gone for two years, but they have all grown so much, he realizes. They are all different people now.  
 

Gently, he lifts Shiro in his arms, careful of the man’s head resting against his chest. He is dead-weight at this point, utter exhaustion in a human form, but he is _alive_ and Keith cradles him like something precious.  
 

He is.  
 

 _I love you.  
_  

He makes eye contact with Krolia as he steps into the open mouth of the Black Lion, and the look on her face has all the understanding of the entire universe.

 

In the cockpit of the Black Lion, Keith sinks down to the floor with Shiro, rearranging him against the concave wall. Shiro’s eyes open for a moment, lashes fluttering like a whisper, and he looks up at Keith, head once again nestled against Keith’s chest.  
 

Neither of them speak, and Shiro’s eyes don’t close, nor do they waver from Keith’s own. Emotions pass between their eyes, soft and whole and the kind of heavy that has no weight other than the familiar comfort of a beating heart. They are two celestial objects, constantly finding a way into each other’s orbit, fated and devine. Keith brushes Shiro’s hair away from his forehead, his touch delicate and light, and Shiro blinks, soft and still, as though he is witnessing a supernova in slow motion.  
  
“You’re safe,” Keith murmurs, fingers straying in Shiro’s star-strewn hair, passing through it like strands of diamond and silver, like Shiro is a treasure.  
 

He is.  
 

 _I love you.  
_  

“I know.” Shiro says the words in the slightest whisper, like an astral wind blowing motes of love and time through space and every reality.  
 

Keith holds him close, fingers moving sun-slow through Shiro’s hair, and they look at each other, sharing time and space until Shiro rests his head further against Keith’s collarbones, his eyelids falling closed.  
 

Keith will keep him safe. Keith will keep him whole.

  
  


_I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> come yell and cry with me about sheith on tumblr at shireduchess *sobbing emoji*


End file.
